Endorsing A Candidate Shouldn’t Be Tied To Race [Guest Blogger]

Guest Blogger Joshua Johnson explains why voting for Barack Obama solely because of his race is an insult to his qualifications.

You’re Black. You Can’t Have an Opinion.

Was I the only one caught up in the irony of people attacking Stacey Dash and Tamera Mowry-Housley for stating their opinions on Twitter? All the while, they were being attacked with the opinions of others.

In case you missed it, Stacey Dash recently tweeted, “Vote for Romney, the only choice for your future.” During the Vice Presidential debate, Tamera Mowry-Housley retweeted a tweet that expressed annoyance over the candidates interrupting one another.

From the backlash she received, you would’ve thought she directly attacked Vice President Joe Biden who was a bit aggressive during the debate.

Election season has intensified Twitter’s wave of not-so expert opinions. They are everywhere; some are thought provoking. Others make you wonder, “What provoked that thought?” Like the one I read Tuesday evening that said, “If Romney wins, I’m moving to New Mexico.” Well alrighty then.

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It’s like People Watching 2.0. When I heard that people were upset with the two actresses, I went to their mentions. I wanted to know the thought processes behind the anger.

What I found bothered me. I was talking to a friend and she told me about a quote she read that said, “People say, ‘vote or die,’ but if you don’t vote for Obama, they just want you to die.”

If you read some of the tweets that Dash and Mowry-Housley were flooded with, you would fully understand, and Mowry-Housley didn’t even endorse anyone.

Here’s the deal, no one is obligated to feel any type of way towards any candidate. If Al Sharpton endorsed Mitt Romney (Sorry, Rev.), he’s not turning his back on his race. He is exercising his right to support a candidate.

I hate to make this about race, but when a huge number of tweets to Mowry-Housley insulted her interracial marriage to a Fox News employee, what am I to assume?

When CBS News reports a tweet to Dash that read, “You’re an unemployed black woman endorsing @MittRomney. You’re voting against yourself thrice. You poor beautiful idiot,” what am I to assume?

I assume that there is a collection of people out there who think that because Barack Obama is an African American, we are obligated to support his ticket. That is not the case.

That is in fact an insult to the POTUS’ body of work. He didn’t qualify for his nomination because he is black. He qualifies because he is qualified.

If you don’t know the platform upon which either of these candidates stands and you simply want the president reelected as an ode to the black community, it’s not Dash and it’s not Mowry-Housley; you are the idiot.

What we must remember is that we are a people; we are not the same person. The struggle for our equality was not just so that we could stand, but so that we could stand wherever we choose.

#MyOpinion

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